Jamaica’s National Heroes
Queen Champong Nanny
Queen Nanny was described as a small, wiry woman with piercing eyes. It is believed that she was born in Ghana of the Asante people and brought to Jamaica in her youth. Queen Nanny, also affectionately known as Granny Nanny, was a brilliant military and spiritual leader of the Maroons during the 18th century. She provided a strong and united opposition against British domination and slavery. Queen Nanny’s leadership was most important during the First Maroon War between 1720 and 1739.
The section under The Maroons above describes Queen Nanny’s exceptional skills in leadership. It is also believed that she had supernatural power and both the British and the Africans that assisted them against the Maroons feared Queen Nanny. Spending her formative years in Africa, Queen Nanny would have learnt about the presence of the ancestral spirits and their ability to intervene and assist in the life of the community. Along with her belief in a Supreme Power, Yankipon, she could call upon these forces, which gave her wisdom as a warrior and spiritual leader.
As with any good leader, Queen Nanny was strong willed and independent in her thinking. In 1739, when her brother, Quao, signed the second Peace Treaty with the British, Queen Nanny was very angry and in disagreement, because she did not trust the British. She was proved right, because it did not take long before the British started amending the treaty in a way detrimental to the Maroons.
Queen Nanny spent her last days visiting Maroon communities throughout the island as a spiritual leader. The Jamaican government declared Queen Nanny National Heroine of Jamaica in 1975 and her portrait is on the Jamaican 500 dollar bill.
Hon. Samuel Sharpe
Daddy Sam Sharpe, as he was fondly known, was born in Montego Bay in 1801. He was a Creole slave and the main instigator of the 1831 Slave Rebellion, which began on the Kensington Estate in St. James and contributed greatly to the abolition of slavery.
Although he was a slave Sam Sharpe learned to read and write and had learnt from reading newspapers that some people in England wanted to end slavery. Sam Sharpe joined the Baptist church and became a preacher. He taught his members that the Bible said that all men are equal and informed them of the changing attitude to slavery in England.
Sam Sharpe devised a plan for passive resistance, where slaves would refuse to work on Christmas Day, 1831. He wanted better treatment for the slaves and the consideration of freedom. If things had not changed, the resistance would continue. Sam Sharpe knew that ripe cane must be cut quickly, or it will spoil. As the cane would be ripe after Christmas, Sam wanted the slaves to sit down after the Christmas and do no work. He thought the owners would pay the slaves to cut the cane, so it would not spoil.
After sharing his plan with his members, they in turn informed others in St. James and the news passed to neighbouring parishes. The news also got to some planters and troops were sent to St. James and warships anchored in Montego Bay and Black River. On December 27th, 1831, the Kensington Estate Great House in St. James was set on fire as a signal that the Slave Rebellion had begun. It did not turn out to be the passive resistance that Sam Sharpe wanted.
Armed fighting and burning of property spread to Trelawny, Westmoreland, St. Elizabeth and Manchester and fourteen whites died. The rebellion was put down by early January 1832 and over 500 slaves lost their lives – many executed. The Hon. Samuel Sharpe was hanged on May 23rd, 1832.
Hon. George William Gordon
George William Gordon was born to a slave mother and white planter in 1820. He became a self-educated businessman, politician and landowner in the parish of St Thomas.
Gordon had established his own Native Baptist church, of which Paul Bogle was a deacon, and was a member of the Jamaica Assembly. He became the voice of the people, who did not qualify to vote, and had subdivided his own lands, selling lots cheaply to the people and organising marketing of their produce at a fair price.
Gordon urged the people to protest against and resist the oppressive and unjust conditions under which they were forced to live – he was accused of instigating the Morant Bay Rebellion. In October, 1865 following the rebellion, George William Gordon was taken from Kingston to Morant Bay, where he was charged for complicity in the rebellion and executed. Gordon's death and the brutality of Governor Edward John Eyre's suppression of the revolt was cause for concern in Britain.
In 1969, when Jamaica decimalized its currency the Hon. George William Gordon appeared on the ten dollar note (now a coin).
Hon. Paul Bogle
Paul Bogle was born sometime between 1815 and 1822. He grew up when slavery was ending and became a Baptist deacon in Stony Gut, a few miles north of Morant Bay. Believing in the teachings of the Bible, Paul was a supporter of George William Gordon and thought of as a generally peaceful and kind man. He was eligible to vote at a time when there were only 104 voters in the parish of St Thomas.
Even after slavery was abolished, there was no real freedom for the black people in Jamaica. They were not given rights to fair trials, to own land or to vote. Paul Bogle did own land - about 500 acres, and he could read and write. One day in 1865, two men were on trial in the Morant Bay Court House and Paul Bogle together with some of his people went to support them. Events that took place at that trial urged Paul Bogle to lead a protest march to the Morant Bay courthouse on October 11, 1865. The march escalated into what became the Morant Bay Rebellion where thousands of houses were burnt.
The Government sent troops to put down the rebellion and many of Paul Bogle's people were killed or hurt. Eventually Paul Bogle was captured and taken to Morant Bay where he was put on trial. He was found guilty and hanged at the Court House on October 24, 1865, along with four hundred and thirty-eight other people.
The rebellion did achieve its objectives. It paved the way towards the establishment of fairer practice in the courts and it brought about a change in official attitude, which made the social and economic betterment of the people possible. Paul Bogle was named one of Jamaica's national heroes because he died for what he believed was right.
Rt. Hon. Marcus Mosiah Garvey
Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jamaica’s first national hero and one of the greatest leaders African people have produced, was born August 17, 1887 in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica. He spent his entire life in the service of his people. He was one of the most powerful orators on record who could literally bring his audiences to a state of mass hysteria. Garvey emphasized racial pride. His goal was the total redemption and liberation of African people all around the globe.
Marcus Garvey migrated to Kingston where he worked as a printer and later published a small paper “The Watchman”. He formed the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in 1914. Its motto was "One God, One Aim, One Destiny," and pledged itself to the redemption of Africa and to uplift Black people everywhere. He travelled throughout Central America and visited London and in 1916, Garvey was invited to the United States by Booker T. Washington to assist in establishing an industrial training school, but he arrived just after Washington died. In March 1916, shortly after landing in America, Garvey established a chapter of the Universal Negro Improvement Association.
Within a few years Marcus Garvey had become the best-known and most dynamic African leader in the Western Hemisphere and perhaps the entire world. In 1919 he created an international shipping company called the Black Star Line. By 1920 the UNIA had hundreds of divisions. It hosted elaborate international conventions and published a weekly newspaper entitled the Negro World. However, USA officials disapproved of his activities and he was imprisoned and then deported. No other organization in modern times has had the impact as the UNIA. During the 1920s UNIA divisions existed throughout North, South and Central America, the Caribbean, Africa, Europe and Australia.
Back in Jamaica in 1927, Garvey continued his political activity. He formed the People’s Political Party in 1929 and although unsuccessful in national elections Garvey won a seat on the Kingston and St. Andrew Council (KSAC). Marcus Garvey left for England again in the 1930s where he died in 1940. His body was returned to Jamaica in 1964 and buried in the National Heroes Park in Kingston.
Sir William Alexander Bustamante
William Alexander Bustamante was born in1884 and became Jamaica’s first Prime Minister. He was the son of an Irish planter named Robert Constantine Clarke and a coloured Jamaican woman, Mary Clarke. He campaigned for workers’ rights and was imprisoned for standing up for his beliefs. He founded the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU), the first trade union in Jamaica and later he founded the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). He was registered William Alexander Clarke but later changed his name by deed poll.
Bustamante left Jamaica in 1905 and lived in countries such as Cuba, Panama and the USA. Returning to Jamaica in the mid-1930s he set up a money lending business, which was very successful. Jamaica was still a crown colony at the time and the Government could veto at all times and it did, often against the interest of the majority. Being aware of the abject poverty of the masses, Bustamante wanted to contribute in some way. During the 1920s and 1930s, failing harvests and worker lay-offs led to high unemployment and extreme poverty. Bustamante did not hesitate to expose the extremely bad social and economic conditions in the local and British newspapers.
Between 1935 and 1936 Bustamante carried out an "anti-water metre protest", and in January 1937 he intervened in a strike at Serge Island Estate, where he acted as mediator. Later in 1937 he became treasurer of the Jamaica Workers and Tradesmen Union, founded in 1936 by AGS Coombs. In highlighting the problems and fighting the causes of the poor, Bustamante stood out as the champion of the working class.
Bustamante and AGS Coombs travelled around the country promoting their union and gave hope to struggling workers. Bustamante was aware of the lack of leaders among the working class and with him being able to relate to the people right at their level, he was up for the challenge. In 1938, Bustmante addressed a crowd of 2,000 at North Parade and made it clear that he represented the lower and middle-class people in Jamaica and he knew that they had confidence in him. Wherever there were labour problems throughout Jamaica he was with the workers. He also confronted the power of the Colonial Government when he said, “Long live the King! But Denham must go”.
1938 was a year of labour unrests and the security forces were everywhere that Bustamante went. On September 8th, 1940, he was detained at UP Park Camp for alleged violation of the Defence of the Realm Act and released seventeen months later.
In 1943 Bustamante founded and led the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). In the first general election in 1944, under Universal Adult Suffrage, the JLP won 22 of the 32 seats. Sir Alexander Bustamante became the first Prime Minister of Independent Jamaica in 1962. He retired from active politics in 1967. Bustamante died on August 6th, 1977, at the age of 93.
The Rt. Excellent Norman Washington Manley
Norman Washington Manley MM QC National Hero of Jamaica was born in Manchester, Jamaica on July 4th, 1893. He was a Rhodes Scholar and athlete, and became one of Jamaica's leading lawyers in the 1920s. Manley identified himself with the struggle of workers in the labour troubles of 1938 and took on the challenge to fight for their cause. Along with his cousin Alexander Bustamante, Manley was an advocate of the Universal Adult Suffrage that was granted in 1944.
In September 1938, Manley founded the People’s National Party (PNP) which was tied to the trade union movement then led by Alexander Bustamante. Norman Manley led the PNP until his retirement in 1969.
Norman Manley was also a strong advocate of the Federation of the West Indies that was established in 1958. When Sir Alexander Bustamante and the Jamaica Labour Party, in opposition, declared that they would take Jamaica out of the Federation, Manley called a referendum. The vote was against Jamaica’s continued membership of the Federation. Norman Manley, after arranging Jamaica’s orderly withdrawal from the union, set up a joint committee to decide on a constitution for separate independence for Jamaica. He himself chaired the committee with great distinction and then led the team that negotiated Jamaica's independence from Britain.
Manley lost the following general election to the JLP. He spent his last years in politics establishing definitively the role of the parliamentary opposition in a developing nation. In his last public address to an annual conference of the PNP, he said: "I say that the mission of my generation was to win self-government for Jamaica. To win political power which is the final power for the black masses of my country from which I spring. I am proud to stand here today and say to you who fought that fight with me, say it with gladness and pride: Mission accomplished for my generation".
"And what is the mission of this generation?… It is…reconstructing the social and economic society and life of Jamaica".
Shortly before his death on September 2nd, 1969, he was proclaimed a National Hero of Jamaica.